Laundry treating appliances, such as clothes washers, refreshers, and non-aqueous systems, may have a configuration based on a rotating drum that defines a treating chamber in which laundry items are placed for treating. The laundry treating appliance may have a controller that may control a motor to rotate the drum according to one of several pre-programmed cycles of operation. In some cycles of operation, the rotation speed may be high, e.g., hundreds of RPM. It may be necessary to halt the rotation of the drum quickly, in which case braking will need to be applied to the drum to halt the rotation. One example of such braking is regenerative braking where current flow in the motor is reversed, causing the motor to become a power generator to actively retard the rotation. However, the power generated by the motor during braking increases the DC voltage in the drive circuit to a level where it may exceed the design voltage of the drive circuit. One known solution includes “soft braking” by selectively turning transistors in the motor drive circuit on and off, thereby keeping the regenerative voltage from the motor below a predetermined threshold. Another known solution includes applying a switch and a dynamic braking resistor to discharge excess voltage (sometimes called a chopper circuit). Another known solution is to turn off the motor, thereby allowing inertia and friction to bring the drum to a halt.